


Apology Accepted

by Teki



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Chromesthesia, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Personification, Synesthesia, character injury, grapheme-color synesthesia, mirror-touch synesthesia, polysynesthesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-12 02:51:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11727984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teki/pseuds/Teki
Summary: During one of the usual blabbering conversations between Lance and Hunk, Lance reveals a new, unknown part of him to the team.Lance has synesthesia. He calls himself a polysynesthete.Nobody thinks much of it (except Pidge, who asks a series of questions and does a series of tests, curious as she is), it never affecting their missions much.That is until he and Keith are sent off on a mission and Keith gets hurt.~A birthdayfic for the precious Moon! She asked for a synesthesia-fic, and as i learned more about it, this fic ended up being More Than Expected.





	Apology Accepted

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday Moon! Ur the swede to my norwegian, 4real. I hope you enjoy this fic bcz idk what happened to it, but here ya go :**
> 
> Thanks to Fluff for telling me abt mirror-touch synesthesia, & hooking me up w some articles on em. 
> 
> Thanks to Rose & Reese for coming up w Pidge's reactions/experiments (specifically the dialogue lmao, god bless you two)
> 
> N an extra thanks to Reese for betaing!! You're a real lifesaver :**

It had started with four of the five paladins sitting in the common room. Lance and Hunk had placed themselves on the sunken-down couch, legs crossed and facing each other as they babbled on incoherently. Pidge was placed on the same couch, opposite to the two boys as she worked on her computer. Keith on the other hand was not sat on the couch, leaning against one of the walls in the room as he read a book. Lance and Hunk talking about everything and anything that fell into their heads wasn’t an unusual happenstance, both Keith and Pidge had long since learned to block them out as they chattered. Pidge found it easy to tune them out when their conversation went at 100 mph all the time.

 

However, when the conversation slowed down, when the two both stopped their chattering, only for Lance to sigh heavily, that was when it became hared to ignore them. Words and sentences would stick more out, the pauses giving Pidge more time to process what was said as she stared down at the screen in front of her. So when, after a moment of silence, Lance said something Pidge never expected to hear from him, she had to turn her attention to her two fellow paladins.

 

“You know, us changing lions just makes it worse. The colors are even more mis-matched now and honestly, sometimes a real eyesore.”

 

Pidge snapped her head around, eyeing the two boys on the other side of the couch. She watched Hunk roll his eyes and sigh as he mumbled a drawn out ‘Lance’ in which the blue paladin puffed his chest out as he spoke in defense.

 

“I’m serious! We’ve spoken about this Hunk, and you agree that some of the colors didn’t fit in the first place. We both know you’re more of a autumn-color guy.”

 

Pidge almost decided to continue to ignore them again. She almost turned her head back to her screen, writing off the two paladins’ conversation as yet another fruitless one. But this one seemed different, the frazzled look Lance was giving Hunk, who in turn had an amused smile, told Pidge this was a conversation she’d may want to partake in. Curiosity got the best of her, as it often did, and she had to ask.

 

“Uh, guys, what exactly are you talking about?”

 

Lance was the first to turn his head to meet Pidge’s look, but Hunk was the first to answer.

 

“Oh, well Lance is just talking about his synesthesia—“

 

Lance seemed to cringe and gave Hunk a sharp look that shut him up, though it didn’t stop him from answering with a shrug. Pidge watched the silent conversation happen between the two of them before picking up where Hunk had left off.

 

“Synesthesia, huh?” She said, eyeing Lance, who smiled a bit awkwardly before answering.

 

“Uh, yeah.” He said, rubbing the back of his neck as he averted Pidge’s gaze. However, the green paladin had now become quite interested in this topic. She had heard about synesthesia back on earth, she didn’t know everything, but enough to know what to ask next.

 

“What kind?”

 

She could see her question threw Lance off. She could see him being visibly taken aback simply by her simply knowing that there were different types of synesthesia. She let herself smirk a bit smugly at this before inquiring further.

 

“Well?” She said, putting her pc next to her as she turned fully towards the two and crossed her arms over her chest expectantly. Lance hesitated, but Pidge was in no rush, raising an eyebrow at him.

 

“Uh, chromesthesia,” he said as Pidge squinted at him, not recognizing the name. This made Lance quickly add a short explanation. “Sound-color synesthesia.”

 

Her eyes widened in realization as a grin grew on her face. She leaned forward, staring intently at Lance with her hands on her knees as she started asking a multitude of questions.

 

“Interesting! How does it work? Does every sound have a color? You mentioned earlier about our colors being mis-matched, do you have colors assigned to us? What does it look like if you’re around lots of people? Is it ever distracting? How do the colors appear? Do they take shapes? Where do they appear? How do—“

 

“Woah, woah, woah, slow down Pidge and breathe, you might run out of air.” Lance interrupted Pidge, lifting his hands as if he was surrendering. “I’ll tell you what you want to know, just, calm down, jeez.”

 

Pidge did as told, slowly closing her mouth as she leant back in her seat. Keith was now also eyeing the three paladins at the couch with some curiosity. He closed his book and brought it with him as he made his way to the sunken couch. He sat down next to Pidge, now looking at Lance with the same expectant look Pidge was wearing. The room waited in silence as Lance took a deep breath before he started to talk.

 

“Well, uh, I’m actually a polysynesthete. Which means I have multiple forms of synesthesia. Sound-color is the one I notice the most, I guess. Seeing sounds as colors. There’s different types of course, but for me it’s mainly voices that have… color.”

 

Pidge nodded enthusiastically.

 

“What does it look like?” She asked, making Lance scrunch his face up in concentration.

 

“It depends from person to person. But the color only comes when you speak, kind of like you’re spewing it out I guess. And they come in.. shapes.”

 

“Shapes?” Now it was Keith’s turn to speak up, lifting an eyebrow.

 

“Yeah, shapes, Keith. For example, when you speak, its purple triangles. Pidge has dark pink squares-“ Lance looked at Pidge. “-Which really clashes with your green suit by the way.”

 

Pidge frowned a bit at him, seeming somewhat dissatisfied. Lance quickly noticed her mood, crossing his arms over his chest with a grunt.

 

“Look, it’s hard to explain, okay. It’s a really abstract thing in my brain that is hard to put into words. You all speak in colors and shapes and it looks like what a hippie on weed would see half of the time.”

 

This time, Hunk broke out from his silence with a somewhat eager voice, making it clear he already knew about Lance being a synesthete.

 

“Yeah yeah, we all have colors and shapes, I’m brown parallelograms and Shiro is green circles, none of us match our paladin colors.” He spoke as if he had heard all of this a hundred times before – which both Keith and Pidge assumed he had. “Lance also has the thing where colors, numbers, months and weekdays have colors, genders and, like, personalities.”

 

Pidge quirked a brow at this. “Aren’t those two different kinds of synesthesia though?” Once again, Lance seemed surprised. Pidge sighed.

“Lance, I had a phase, okay? Don’t question it.”

 

Lance shrugged before answering her question. “Yeah, those are two different kinds. Grapheme-color synesthesia and personification. They often go together, for many, letters that have a color also have a gender and personality.”

 

Hunk snorted. “Back at the Garrison, Lance got in a discussion with this girl who had grapheme-color synesthesia about which color the letter A is. That was how she found out she had synesthesia.”

 

Lance closed his eyes as he seemed to think back on this, nodding in agreement with Hunk. “I still stand by the fact that A is red.”

 

Pidge looked at Keith, who looked back at her. They took a moment to stare at each other, before Pidge shrugged. Keith answered by mirroring her shrug, before they both turned their attention back to the two other paladins.

 

Hunk, who had spent the few seconds of diverted attention to stare at Lance with a miffed expression, turned back to Keith and Pidge as he spoke again.

 

“Anyway, he has this fourth type that I think is really cool. Its called, uh—“ He took a second to think, scratching the back of his head. “—Oh yeah, mirror-touch synesthesia, right?”

 

Hunk turned to Lance, who nodded.

 

“And what, exactly, does that do?” Pidge asked.

 

Lance turned to look at Hunk for a moment, who in return gave Lance an expectant look. Lance let his head fall in defeat for half a second before lifting himself up in his confident posture as he answered.

 

“It means that I feel what other people feel.” Hunk nodded sagely at this, but Pidge did not look impressed. Lance quickly realized that such an explanation wasn’t precise enough, and continued speaking before Pidge could point it out. “Uh—What I mean is.. I feel other people’s sensations. For example if I saw someone poke your shoulder, I’d feel the sensation of someone poking me at the same spot on my shoulder.”

 

Lance took a short pause to think his words over before continuing. “I’m kind of lucky on this one, because in my case it’s a rather mild version. Some people with mirror-touch feel the need to isolate themselves from other people because the sensations become so overwhelming. Back on Earth I remember reading about this one doctor who had MTS and how it had helped him with his patients.”

 

At this point Pidge’s eyebrows were high on her forehead, jaw hanging slack. Keith managed to contain himself a bit more, but only barely, this being somewhat shocking to the both of them. Pidge quickly shook herself out of her own trance, and then she started asking questions again.

 

“Wait, does that mean you feel every sensation you see? What about all the fights we’ve been in? And how does this affect us when we form Voltron? We know our minds get linked in some way, do you think this affects how we’re perceiving the world?”

 

She babbled on a bit more, the others waiting patiently for her mind to calm down and for the questions to slow. Once she had stopped thinking out loud, sitting with her legs crossed under her on the couch deep in thought, Lance spoke.

 

“It’s different when I’m prepared for it. Like, if you know you’re gonna get slapped and brace yourself, it’s gonna be different than if the slap is out of the blue. And when we’re in the middle of a fight I’m often too preoccupied with my own fight to watch you guys get your asses beat. I’d probably have it harder if any of you got shot or something. It has been a bit difficult with some of the Galra though…”

 

Lance’s smile dropped a bit as memories of past missions flooded his mind. The enemies he’d shot, the ones he’d seen the other paladins take down. He had felt the burning pain soaring through his chest as his shots burned through armor, felt his throat hurt like never before as Keith cut through necks, his stomach churn as Shiro cut bodies in two. He never screamed, never reacted. He was always ready for it, and soon enough he got used to it. Lance swallowed dryly before continuing.

 

“As for Voltron… How would I know? I don’t know how the world looks without synesthesia, you guys don’t know how it looks with synesthesia. None of us would know if this affects Voltron.”

 

Pidge grumbled a bit at this, before sighing as she let her arms from their crossed positon over her chest. “Well, then I guess we’ll have to figure that out.”

 

She certainly tried her best. The next following weeks, Lance became Pidge’s new project. She would regularly ask him about the colors of the alphabet, numbers, months and week-days. Lance’s colors never changed. She would also quiz him further on the colors and shapes he saw when people spoke, writing down everything he told her.

However, when she began exploring his MTS, Lance would have to set several lines as she would drag the other paladins in to help her. It had started with tests that Lance felt were fairly ok _(“Come here Lance, I’m gonna poke Hunk and you’re gonna tell me if you feel it.” “Pidge I told you I would feel that.” “Yes but I’m gonna attach brain scanners to you.”_ ). In time, they became somewhat weirder _(“Listen Lance, I’m gonna pull Coran’s mustache and you have to tell me if you feel a phantom mustache on your face.” “Uhh, okay?”_ ). Thanks to Pidge easily getting a bit too excited, Lance ended up having to say no to some of her requests ( _“Okay Lance. I’m gonna stab Keith. Tell me if it hurts.” “Of course it’s gonna hurt! Don’t stab him!” “Psh, Keith doesn’t mind.” “Keith, is that true?” “Pidge just dragged me in here with no explanation, but sure, if it helps her research. I’ll survive a stab-wound. I’ll just sleep in the cryo-pod for an hour.” “Nope, no, not happening, absolutely not. Pidge, put that knife away, or so help me!_ ”).

 

Everyone on the castle knew soon enough, thanks to Pidge pulling everyone into it. Though, except for Pidge’s testing, little changed. They kept going on missions, kept finding supplies, kept saving planets from the Galra Empire and forming alliances. It was on one of these missions that things went terribly wrong.

 

Lance and Keith had been sent on a simple pick-up mission, to get some crystals that would greatly help their newly-acquired allies of the Bei-Yu planet. The crystals were located on an asteroid in a quadrant close by, making it a relatively short trip. Neither of them really minded this mission, as things had really been going on all at once after Lotor showed up. They expected a quick retrieval and return with little hiccups.

 

What they didn’t expect was a Galra ship by the asteroid, presumably in the search of the same crystals they were after. Although the red paladin’s initial thought was to attack, the two of them quickly agreed that would be unwise when they didn’t have the rest of the team with them. The two paladins managed to sneak onto the enlarged stone and get what they came for with a relative ease, but it was the return to their lions that became troublesome.

 

Galra sentries found them on their way out, and so began a chase around the asteroid, Keith and Lance’s first priority being to get the hell out of there with the crystals. They managed to shake most of the sentries, but just as they got to their destination, a desolate area where they had parked their lions, three Galra soldiers appeared. The two paladins were quick with reacting, but Lance had not actually been prepared to fight on this mission, sentry or soldier.

 

So that’s why, as Lance watched Keith cut through the first soldier, the pain shocked him. He was used to seeing the Galra being cut down by now. It didn’t hurt as much as it had done the first times. It didn’t hurt as much as it had done after they allied with the Blade of Marmora, after it was confirmed that there were more to the Galra race than met the eye. But it hurt enough to knock the air out of him when a line of nerves flamed up in pain down his torso. It hurt enough to make him freeze. For him to not focus.

 

And that was all that was needed.

 

It happened before Lance realized it did. Suddenly, one of the Galran soldiers knocked the red paladin over, and shot a hole through his shin.

 

Lance’s leg flamed out in a startling white pain, and as Keith screamed, so did Lance. But as Keith laid on the floor writhing in pain, Lance kept standing. It had been unexpected, the Galra soldiers. It had thrown Lance off. But he had endured more than a shot through the leg, had grit his teeth and blinked tears away as he held his gun up as he felt his own body get torn up, sliced through and shot to pieces a hundred times over.

 

So Lance stood, pulled his trigger twice, and the two Galran soldiers fell to the ground as Lance felt as if two miniature glowing suns had been placed in his chest. He groaned as he made his way to Keith, the pain from the now-dead Galra already fading into a faint soreness. Keith however, was still in pain. Keith, was alive and in pain. Lance could feel it as he barely managed to put weight on his left leg. Once close enough, he offered his hand to his friend and helped him up to his feet. Lance could see Keith bite his tongue, could see him avoid burdening his injured leg.

 

Lance helped Keith into his lion, the red paladin joking dryly about how lucky they were that they didn’t need to use their legs to pilot the lions. Lance agreed with a halfhearted laugh before hurrying back to his own lion. Once he couldn’t see Keith anymore, the pain in his leg started to subside. They left the asteroid shortly after, the crystals stored in Lance’s cockpit.

 

The second they were out in space, Lance pulled up the face cam to make sure Keith was doing fine. The second Keith’s face flickered on screen, Lance felt ill again. Keith was visibly paler than usual, heaving for air as he struggled to keep focus. Lance could see his bangs cling to his skin from under the helmet, the top of the visor fogging slightly. The blue paladin could feel his own temperature rise, could feel how he was starting to shake as strength left his body. He took a deep breathy as he felt his leg start to throb again. Of course, he knew the cause of the symptoms, he knew why Keith was feeling as he did. Even if he couldn’t see the leg itself, seeing the pain in Keith’s face as he bit his cheek and focused on flying was more than enough.

 

They sped up, both feeling ill and Lance refusing to turn off the face com, fearing the worst if he did. Thankfully, Lance had half a mind to contact the Castle and tell them to be ready when the lions landed. Thankfully, as Keith limped out of his lion, Coran and Shiro were ready to bring him with them to the med bay. Pidge and Hunk, both worried for Lance’s health, pulled him away to check if the prolonged exposure to pain had affected his body in any way.

 

However, Lance quickly felt fine the second Keith was out of his field of vision. By the time Pidge forced him to sit down on her make-shift bench, he was already fooling around with both her and Hunk, behaving like he usually would. Pidge’s attempts at keeping Lance in place ended up futile as he kept slinking off the bench to show off the moves he apparently had pulled off while saving Keith. It made Hunk laugh, beige parallelograms flying from him and filling the room. He managed to make Pidge roll her eyes, although even she smiled every now and then.

 

After about an hour of goofing around , putting his friends at ease, Lance gave Pidge a quick reassurance as he left them to their tech talk as he was sure her dark pink squares would soon poke a hole in his head as they drifted around the room. He made his way down the corridors, thankful for the quiet. He didn’t think much of his destination before his feet had brought him to the door to the med bay. He stood there and stared for a moment, and just as he decided to at least knock, Coran came walking out.

 

They both seemed shocked to see the other, mostly because they almost crashed into the other. As they both collected themselves, Lance asked Coran how Keith was doing. Bright yellow octagons flew about as Coran spoke, explaining that Keith would be out of the pod shortly. He had lost a great deal of blood, but he would be ok, the wound in his leg would not give any lasting damage. Coran gave Lance a fond but stern look only older and wiser men could give as he told Lance that he probably wanted to be there when Keith got out. Lance could only nod as he swallowed dryly, setting his sights back at the door.

 

A few steps forward and the sensors picked up on him, the doors opening with little sound. The med bay looked like it always did, though one of the pods were up and active, Keith’s sleeping body easy to see from where Lance stood. In the room were also Shiro and Allura, both smiling softly at Lance as he made his way toward them.

 

All three of them waited for Keith, making idle chat, peach-colored rectangles and circles as green as grass swirling around the three of them. It was calming, talking with Shiro and Allura helped Lance put his mind elsewhere as they waited. He didn’t want to think about what he had put Keith through, the fact that he froze, that he didn’t react in time, that he was the reason Keith was in that pod right now.

 

So when they all heard the pod door open and slide down, when they heard Keith grunt as he woke to life, Lance could do little but take a deep breath and turn slowly to meet the red paladin while Allura and Shiro rushed to the pod to help their friend.

 

Lance watched as Keith gave the two older friends words of reassurance as he slowly came out of his disoriented state. He wrung his hands as purple triangles joined the green circles and peach rectangles dancing around the room. He swallowed dryly as they laughed over a joke Lance hadn’t caught. Then Keith met his eyes.

 

The room became silent as the two paladins looked at each other. After a moment, Shiro cleared his throat.

 

“I’m glad you’re okay, Keith.” He spoke as he patted the red paladin on his shoulder. “I’ll go tell Pidge and Hunk that you’re awake.”

 

He slowly turned and started to walk towards the door, before seemingly realizing something as he stopped and turned on his heel. He looked back at Allura who was still standing by Keith’s side, studying both the red and blue paladin with a curious tilt to her head. Shiro cleared his throat again, this time it was a bit louder and lasted for a little longer than what would be natural. Her head snapped to look at Shiro, meeting his telling gaze. Her eyebrows shot up with realization.

 

“Oh, yes, I believe the… Mice, are calling for me. I must go tend to them immediately.”

 

She quickly followed Shiro out of the room, the door shutting behind them. The rectangles and circles popped out of existence the second the two left the room, leaving only the purple triangles to circle around the room.

 

Like that, they were alone, neither of them moving. A silent minute went by as Lance looked Keith over. He was standing steadily on both feet, the little color that had disappeared as they travelled back to the castle had come back. He was not shaking nor sweating anymore. He looked ok. But Lance still needed to say what he had come to say.

 

“I’m sor—“

 

“Don’t,” Keith interrupted him. “Don’t apologize. You don’t have to.”

 

Lance was taken aback by this. He had been psyching himself up to apologize since they got back to the Castle. He felt.. a bit annoyed.

 

“Excuse me? Of course I’m gonna apologize you idiot, you could have died because of me!”

 

“But I didn’t. Thanks to you. You saved me.”

 

Lance threw his hands up in the air with annoyance. “What kinda logic is that? I froze, Keith! I wouldn’t have needed to save you if I hadn’t fucked up in the first place.”

 

Keith only shrugged. “Shit happens.”

 

“Shit – Shit happens? _What?_ ”

 

Keith sighed at Lance’s confusion, taking a deep breath before speaking again.

 

“Look Lance, we all fuck up, a lot. Me especially. What I’m saying is.. It’s okay. It went well.” As he spoke, Keith slowly walked closer, the dark purple triangles turning a lighter shade as he put a hand on the blue paladin’s shoulder. Lance breathed out in frustration, tears threatening to spill. He wasn’t sure if they were tears of relief, anger or sadness. He couldn’t believe Keith was just forgiving him like this. He had been so goddamn scared, of the Galra catching them, of Keith dying, of Keith not forgiving him. Despite Lance’s best efforts to blink away the overflowing waterworks, a single tear managed to make it’s way down his cheek.

 

Keith used his free hand to gently wipe the tear away, leaning closer in the process.

 

“Lance,” Keith spoke softly now, meeting Lance’s eyes with his own. “You saved me. You saved the both of us. Thank you.”

 

Lance felt Keith’s lips softly brush against his, and the overwhelming relief he had been trying to keep down welled over. He wrapped his arms around Keith as he let his head fall to his shoulders, the first sobs wracking through his body.

 

He felt Keith’s body stiffen in surprise for half a second before relaxing. He felt Keith slowly wrap his hands around him, rubbing soothing circles into his back. Lance hadn’t felt so relieved in ages.

**Author's Note:**

> Welp! Thanks for reading!
> 
> my tumblr is: sushisocks.tumblr.com
> 
> Edited 09.08.17 (ddmmyy) to say this: i got a question about what my thought process in regards to this fic was, considering i dont have synesthesia myself and well..
> 
> it started out with me wanting lance to reveal his synesthesia. i think he's the type to not mention it until it comes up in a conversation. i didn't want the synesthesia to become the be-all end-all of the fic, because in the end of the day it is just you know, something people with synesthesia have to live with every day. i tried to put in details in regard to what lance was seeing every now and then as to the colors and voices, as gentle reminders that this isn't an on-and-off at will situation. i guess if i wanted to expand on this i'd like to write sth with lance tiring out after seeing and speaking to a lot of people - possibly getting a migraine? i think id have to do more research to play at that though. 
> 
> for the mts situation with keith getting shot, i had to use a bit of my imagination. a friend sent me an article about this doctor with MTS who felt the pain and symptoms of his patients, and how it ultimately helped him diagnose people in some situations. i had lance mention him in the fic because this doctor was my main source of inspiration for writing lance with MTS. if you'd like to read that one, dont be afraid to ask me on tumblr. 
> 
> a friend of mine aired the thought of how nsfw situations would affect someone with MTS, and tbh though i do think it would be fun to write lance in such a situation, i'd rather not overstep my bounds. as i said i dont live with synesthesia and i tried very hard to not step on any toes as i wrote this oneshot. im very glad for the reaction it has gotten, and that people seem to enjoy it (and extra happy that moon liked it, love ya girl :**)
> 
> thanks for reading, i hope this world-jumble at the end here made some kind of sense..


End file.
